Google App Could Identify Your Face In A Picture

Google's Hartmut Neven, pictured here is in charge of developing the new facial recognition app.

Google is making and planning to release a smartphone app that could identify your face after someone snaps a picture of you.

The technology has been around for years after Google acquired company Neven Vision that specializes in object and facial recognition development.

To participate in the facial database, users would have to check a box allowing Google to access the user’s personal information including name, phone number and e-mail address.

The company is now taking privacy concerns very seriously.

Google had to pay over $8.5 million in a settlement after publishing users names belonging to its Buzz social networking service, and now must receive an independent review of policy procedures every two years.

Google even blurs faces and license plates of cars out when they appear in its Street View maps program.

The company is aware of the repercussions of the new technology.

Many people “are rightfully scared of it,” Hartmut Neven, the Google engineering director for image-recognition development said.

“In particular, women say, ‘Oh my God. Imagine this guy takes a picture of me in a bar, and then he knows my address just because somewhere on the Web there is an association of my address with my photo.’ That’s a scary thought. So I think there is merit in finding a good route that makes the power of this technology available in a good way.”